One of the things we have gotten done is some signage for the farm. We have been advertising some, we have brochures published and distributed, and we are now selling from the farm and through a local store. Sales have been slow but steady and our biggest sellers are not ready yet (tomatoes and corn) so it should only improve.
The font is from the 1930s which we thought was fitting.
This is a temporary set up and we have the materials to do a sign that identifies specific produce etc. It will be wood and old fashioned.
I saw this on a picture from the 1940s and had it reproduced. The signs are aluminum and should last a good while.
The new greenhouse is working out well and we now have shade cloth on both greenhouses.
We have customers that come and pick what they want and then we harvest it for them. In this case he wanted beets, onions, a cabbage, red leaf lettuce and mustard greens.
We have also had customers ask us to make containers and pots full of plant starts, bulbs or cuttings they purchase from us. They bring the containers, we set them up and give them some tips on successfully growing them.
The grape vines should be producing another bumper crop. We have planted some additional vines that will be productive next year and the big outlay for the vineyard will be this fall.
With on farm sales you have to behave yourself because we have a lot of visitors but we live here and from what some people are telling us they like to come from the city and see an old fashioned quiet country farm....and clothes on the line is part of that. We just try not to have anything too risque!
We sell flowers, bulbs, starts, cuttings etc and we have a lot of examples in our own gardens. Color is important to us and we enjoy the flowers for that color and for the beneficial insects that they bring.
This has been a very mild year (it was 54 last night) and we are enjoying it but some of the plants are really almost a month behind. These Lillies should have bloomed at the beginning of June.
Just to show some variety of what we have...
The sweet smell of flowers, when they are outside, is intoxicating to me.
Notice the varied colors, shapes of the petals...
and the incredible variety of pistils and stamens
Even the stark white of this Hydrangea has a particular beauty.
But it hasn't been all work and no play. We live a few miles from Route 66 and have an on going passion for traveling that route and seeing all that it has to offer. Traffic is usually light or almost non-existent, and there are still some operating attractions. For Fathers day, Holly and Judy took me to the Wild Animal Safari in Strafford, MO which is on Route 66.
They have two parts to the place, one you do a walk about and see Lions and other animals you can feed and the other is a driving tour where the animals will come up to your car and you can feed them. We thought it would be a 10 - 15 minute drive but it took us 2 hours to get through the thing and it was a blast. This Ostrich stuck his head right in the car and grabbed some feed right out of the bag.
Poor Holly had this Zeedonk chase the car and not let her go. It was hilarious and every time we would stop for other animals he was at her window wanting a treat. We finally got away from him by dropping some range cubes on the ground and making a run for it.
Its a nondescript place and to be honest it looks run down from the road but it was quite nice and a fun place to bring a family.
You would think that living on a farm we would have our fill of animals but ...no.
This little guy seemed lonely and liked to have his neck rubbed.
So that almost catches us up. The three of us like these road side attractions and this one proves you cant judge a book by its cover.
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